Oxford Skeptics in the Pub
People who work in public healthcare, or are involved with the promotion of health practitioners or techniques, do not have an absolute right to a reputation. It is most important that the claims, behaviours and results achieved are subject to the highest levels of public scrutiny. It is only in doing so that we...
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This afternoon, Richard Dawkins will speak about the insidious nature of English Libel Laws as a guest speaker at the Liberal Democrats Conference in Bournemouth.
Professor Dawkins (along with me, coughs) was one of the first signatories to the campaign to keep libel laws out of science. This campaign was inspired by the rather...
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The Dutch sceptics group, Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij (VtdK – The Society against Quackery) have managed to overturn a important court ruling that was preventing them calling quacks quacks. In a remarkable case, that in many ways closely parallels the BCA vs. Simon Singh case in the UK, a judge has decided that...
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This is an open letter to all homeopaths in the UK.
It has been a bit of a surprise to me to learn that the Society of Homeopaths is wanting to lobby the Health Professions Council to include homeopathy within its regulation remit. As such, you will receive protected title (only registered homeopaths will be...
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The following is a reprint of an article by Simon Singh that appeared in the Guardian last year. It is highly critical of significant aspects of chiropractic. As a result the British Chiropractic Association decided to sue Simon Singh.
The article is being posted and reprinted today on many blogs and in magazines as...
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The BMJ has today published an exchange between the British Chiropractic Association and Professor Edzard Ernst examining the claims of the BCA that chiropractic is effective in treating childhood ailments such as asthma and colic. The editorial of the BMJ has come down firmly supporting the assessment of Ernst. The editorial says,
His demolition of...
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This letter has been issued from the McTimoney Association to all its members…
Date: 8 June 2009 09:12:18 BDT
Subject: FURTHER URGENT ACTION REQUIRED!
Dear Member
If you are reading this, we assume you have also read the urgent email we sent you last Friday. If you did not read it, READ IT VERY CAREFULLY NOW and...
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The British Chiropractic Association do not appear to be too hot on evidence. Given that they are suing Simon Singh, a science writer, for saying that they promoted treatments for children’s ailments, such as asthma and colic, when there was no good evidence, you would have thought that they would have been quick to...
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One of the side effects of the BCA vs Chiropractic libel case is that there are a growing number of people who now realise that Chiropractic is bogus*. Even though Simon Singh may well have suffered a set back from a judge who according to the law can define words as he sees fit,...
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The University of Oxford recent completed a report into the comparative costs of defamation proceedings across Europe. Its conclusions were that the costs of libel proceedings in England and Wales are about 140 times higher on average than those found across Europe. The reasons for this boil down the large number of lawyers...
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